


The Refuge Series

by aisle_one



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:12:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisle_one/pseuds/aisle_one
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of an attack, Peter and Neal navigate their way through Neal's recovery. A story of friendship and love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unfurl

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting for car8, who asked so nicely and waited so patiently.

It's 2 AM. Peter wakes to banging. In the dark, he nearly stumbles down the stairs and mutters a string of curses. Winter is just thawing and a curl of biting air hits him in the face when he opens the door.

It is Neal. There is a bruise on his cheek, a cut on his lip. It holds Peter for a moment, words dying in his throat, as if time snagged itself and locked everything still.

Neal is like a tragic subject in an oil painting, hands shoved in his pockets, dark shadows over his profile softening his angular jaw and lengthening his lashes. He will not meet Peter's eyes. A quiet tremor pulses through his frame and jolts Peter to the present. He pulls back with the door.

Neal passes the stairwell, passes the divide between hallway and living room, then stops.

There are whispers, stutters, hitches in breath and Neal still avoids his eyes.

Peter steps carefully. Asks for permission. Touches only at the edges, lightly and as necessary.

Here, I'll take your coat.

Drink this.

Can I bandage your wrist?

Don't apologize.

Whatever you need, whatever you need.

They sit on the couch. Peter inches close until Neal flinches; he shushes another apology. Questions whip in Peter's mind. One makes it past his lips. What happened -- but Neal folds into himself, shakes his head, shakes all over and Peter buries his urgency to know. He stands instead.

Peter leaves Neal for a moment and returns with an armload of blankets and pillows, a t-shirt and sweats. Neal helps him tuck the sheets into the couch. Peter motions to the stairs and Neal takes the t-shirt and sweats from him. Peter settles into the arm chair and waits. Sounds of running water echo. After forty-five minutes, Neal returns. Peter's clothes hang loose on his more slender frame. With his hair wet, bruises and cuts raw and stark against his reddened skin, Neal appears achingly young, achingly breakable.

When Peter asks, Neal shakes his head -- no, I don't need anything. So Peter doesn't move and says nothing when Neal sinks down to the couch, moving too carefully, too precisely. But when Neal is lying on his side, hands under his head, Peter asks for permission again. Neal's nod is faint; it's enough. Peter hitches the blanket around his shoulders and sits on the edge of the couch where Neal's curled body allows a small space. He gently runs his hand through Neal's hair until Neal quiets, stops trembling and falls to sleep.


	2. Bright

It is odd to see Neal smoking.

The lid on the pack of cigarettes hangs awry over the glass top of the patio table and an unfolded pack of matches lies next to it. They jump each time Neal bangs his elbow down, after a puff and flick. His leg jiggles. But for these, everything is still, like a tightly strung composition.

Peter breathes in, moves from the shadows. The curtain rustles around him, then billows wide when he slides open the door and air hits.

Neal cranes his neck. Quiet. He is too quiet. Even the restless slide of his shoe against concrete is too—

Peter wants to shake the story out of Neal. Wants to pat him down, dig into his pockets, slide his hands in impermissible places. The demand sits on his tongue. Tell me.

Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

Peter doesn’t say. 

Neal’s eyes are too animated. Too loud. Too busy. They roam and roam, and can’t seem to find a home.

Peter offers coffee. A bagel. A walk? Satchmo could use a walk. It’s a beautiful day—and that, that was inane. But Neal’s eyes relax and stop roaming when they fix on Peter’s face.

Neal leaves and returns with Satchmo on the leash. 

They crowd the sidewalk—Peter, Neal, and Satchmo pulls them along. Runners glide by. Walkers stutter in their steps and accommodate, because Peter refuses to leave Neal. He keeps pace with him, shoulder to shoulder, and Peter knows it’s selfish, disrupts traffic. But even a step or two back opens a gap too wide; Pe ter can’t risk uncertainty. He needs now and not yesterday. 

Neal is still too quiet. Peter blames the sun. It is inappropriately blinding. 

And Peter. Peter is an ace shot; he conquers tedium with dogged persistence; his mind snaps at speeds that even Harvard graduates can’t rival. He can outpace, outsmart, out dance the most clever. And he knows that place, the curve in Elizabeth’s neck just as it slopes to her shoulder, where his touch loosens her and she opens, allows him to take from her what is too heavy to bear alone. He is even a sometimes patient cook.

But this. He finds his hands are useless. His mind is cluttered with meaningless platitudes.

And Neal. With his bruised cheek and the cut lip already mending, he saunters like he was in a bar fight the nigh t before. But when Satchmo interrupts and breaks their steady pace, Neal’s eyes lose all animation. Peter reads the distance in Neal’s stare as he sees nothing, spies the shiver that rattles and just as quickly dissipates; he looks away before Neal catches him.

An hour later and several blocks to Peter’s home, Neal says quietly, “They took my hat.”

I’m sorry. A whisper. Peter unlocks the front door, swings it wide and ushers Neal in.


	3. Stretch

The third night goes like this.

Peter is pretending to watch a game. He calculates sidelong glances, often, at Neal, who is pretending to read. Neal drops his foot from the coffee table, slides the book off his lap. He starts digging a knuckle against the palm of his other hand, a nervous tick Peter first notices earlier that day.

What do you need? It is the third time Peter asks, in this hour.

I need to find Kate.

But Kate is--

Neal shrugs into his coat. Peter follows, hurries, because Neal is moving with swift intent. In the car, Neal jabs at the dashboard. The radio channels flicker and jump on the screen, all the way to June's.

The house is empty and cold when they arrive.

Peter sits at an angle to Neal, their elbows bumping. The fractal scrapes against wood when Neal turns it upside down; he hunches, peers closer, traces one curving line. Down, across, down, down, down. They toy with theories. Neal abruptly stands.

He stalks to the small chessboard. He moves a piece. Black pawn.

There is a shout.

Fuck.

The chessboard clutters to the floor. Glass breaks.

Neal's back is to Peter.

Fuckfuckfuck. A quiet litany.

He fists a hand through his hair, grabs clumps in a white-knuckled grip. And laughs, a hollow sound that crumbles when he inhales.

Then. The silence pulls taut from where Neal sits on the bed and it climbs the length of Peter's spine, tingles at his fingertips. Neal's chest rises and falls. Peter watches from the table, waits. He is good at waiting.

Neal is back to avoiding his eyes, scratching at his palm. Peter sighs. He moves, grabs a towel off the counter and kneels to gather pieces of broken glass.

"Leave it," Neal says.

Fine.

Peter rises slowly. He folds the towel and places it by the sink.

"You should go."

"Neal--"

"I'm fine."

No. No.

Peter steps over broken glass and scattered chess pieces. He takes the corner of the small couch directly across from Neal, still perched on the bed. He folds his hands on his lap. The lack of sleep has carved hollows beneath Neal's eyes.

"I'm not leaving you," Peter says, in a tone both plain and brooks no argument. Neal swallows. His tongue flicks at the fresh scab on his lip. The air compresses, then releases. Neal's mouth softens. Peter breathes out.

Neal walks to where a white rook rolled and collided against a table leg. He picks it up, sweeps nearby pieces into his cupped hand. Neal plucks at the broken glass next. The floor is clear. Everything is back in its place.

There is a small black bag at the far corner past Neal's bed. Peter goes to it. He tosses it on the bed and finds Neal's clothes. They gather shirts, jeans, three sweaters and leave all of Ne al's suits. Neal folds the small chessboard in a box and stuffs it into his bag.

They listen to Puccini during the drive. Peter takes Neal's hand, squeezes, then lets go.


	4. Checkmate

1.

On the chessboard stand the eight remaining pieces: two kings, five pawns and a bishop. Neal moves the white king, then boxes it in with the black one. The pieces jockey against each other. The white bishop advances; the black king counters.

This, Neal explains, is how Magnus Carlsen went from falling behind in the sixth round to then reverse momentum and end the game in a draw against Vladimir Kramnik, a formidable opponent.

Magnus Carlsen is a twenty-two year old Norwegian chess prodigy. He is the second youngest in history to become grandmaster. In 2010, he ranked #1 in the world; this, from having ranked #400 in 2004. Unlike many of his peers, Carlsen does not train with computers. He thinks computer chess is inelegant, lacking in finesse and intuition. What computers don't play is a style called "positional," one less focused on driving toward checkmate an d rather imbues the player with an over-all sense of the board. It is an approach that Carlsen has increasingly adopted. He is a stellar strategist, capable of being many different players. Thus, he is unpredictable and difficult to defeat.

Neal wipes the board clean and realigns the chess pieces. He readies to demonstrate the match between Carlsen and Vasilios Kotronias, a Greek grandmaster. Carlsen didn't win the game, but he prides it as one of his best-played efforts.

Neal moves the first piece.

He starts quietly. The skies were clear that night, as forecasted earlier in the week.

The moon hung high and full; unobstructed, it was magnificent as ethereal things are meant to be in their finest form. Neal brought with him his camera to dinner with Mozzie at the latest trendy bistro in Chelsea. After the dinner, he planned to head north, then west as far as his anklet would permit. There, he would charm his access to a rooftop, w here he would take photos of the moon and later replicate it on canvas.

__

10:46 PM. Tuesday. An early night by New York City standards.

Peter is walking just past ninth avenue on twenty-fifth street. He stops in front of a building, where Neal's tracking data shows he stood for several minutes. It is mid-afternoon and the weather is mild, but there are few others loitering the area. He marches up the few steps to the door, as Neal did, and peers at the address labels associated with each buzzer.

 

2.

Neal steeples his hands under his chin and stares at the knight. He sacrifices it.

They reeked of alcohol. Neal stammers, a little. They crowded the sidewalk and refused to let him pass. He turned to cross the street. Someone yanked him by the neck of his coat. Bodies caged him.

Two pairs of hands pinned his legs; another pair twisted his arm. A knee sat on his back. Something sliced at h is wrist.

__

11:01 PM. One block east.

Penn South Playground. It is behind Karen's Performing Arts, a far enough stretch from twenty-fifth street. Under the dark veil of night and curtain of opaque leaves that hang from a many years old tree, the playground might have been inviting as an intimate enclave. Or a convenience. A quick trade in cash for drugs. Or a place to muffle screams behind the iron weight of a suffocating hand.

Neal's tracking data reports that he was here for twenty-six minutes. Long enough.

Too long.

Peter kicks at an empty coke can and watches it roll over scattered debris and cigarette butts.

 

3.

The rook falls next.

Neal takes a shuddering breath.

__

11:27 PM. Corner of 8th Avenue and 25th Street.

This is where Neal stood -- battered and shivering -- for fifteen minutes, flagging cabs that refused to stop. Peter glares at each one that passes him.

Twelve minutes later, Peter is on twenty-third street and Broadway at the R subway station, going downtown, toward Brooklyn. He leans against the railing, as Neal might have.

 

4.

"That's how he gained his position," Neal explains. It was a combination Carlsen had never seen before. "'There's no better feeling than discoveri ng something new,'" Neal quotes him.

__

Back at his office, Peter watches Neal at his desk. He doesn't look quite complete without his hat.


	5. Splinter

They canvas the area.

Between twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh streets on eighth avenue, they find a residential security camera and one at the entrance of a corner deli. At 10:54 PM, the group huddles out of the deli; one lights a cigarette and passes it two others, who use it to light theirs. At 10:56 PM, they pass by the apartment building, jostling each other and laughing.

On twenty-fourth street, between seventh and sixth avenues, another camera catches the group walking east. Time is marked at 11:21 PM when they first enter the camera's view. A stocky blond saunters at the edge of the group; he is wearing Neal's hat.

It turns out there was also a camera behind the church, next to Karen's Performing Arts.

The tech shows Peter how to zoom in on the right corner and amplify the image. Peter hands the tech a five dollar bill and tells him to take a coffee break, a long on e.

11:04 PM - 11:19 PM: The tall brunette, standing with his back to the camera, is like a boulder at a cave's entrance, protecting the darkness within while fracturing the light from without. He has one hand snagged in his hair and the other stuffed in his pocket. Bouncing on his heels, he blocks the face of the one who has his knee digging against Neal's back and the other pinning Neal's right leg.

Peter breathes deep, holds it, closes his eyes, swallows with great difficulty against the rising bile in his throat. He clenches a fist.

One stooped figure lands a hammering blow. He tips his head back and the camera fixes on his face. The laugh that follows turns it into a caricature right before his hand rises from the shadows and he plants Neal's hat on his blond head.

Peter decides to break his face.

__

 

We have a suspect. Peter taps at the brown folder and smiles.

Neal shakes his head, eyes uncertain.

Peter gestures at the videotapes piled at the edge of his desk. He is eager to rush to details: the blond is in his second semester of law school at Fordham; a trust fund baby whose father's name is immortalized in a gold plaque in one library wing; he has a previous arrest for assaulting a driver in his car at a red light, after calling him faggot.

Neal blinks. His eyes flit back and forth from the videotapes on Peter's desk to Peter's face as if struggling to reconcile the meaning behind Peter's words. Stunned disbelief slowly blossoms on his face.

"Y-you saw what--," Neal chokes out in horrified realization. "You saw it!"

Peter's elation plummets to his feet.

"Who else?" Neal asks in a voice frayed and frantic, desperation reducing his query to a barely audible gasp.

A sudden and shattering silence falls between them.

"Neal, let me explain--"

"Stop. Ju st tell me what you did." 

Peter sighs heavily. He is matter-of-fact as he narrates their investigation, yet offers it with open, pleading hands. Neal's eyes affect shock after Peter tells him--yes, Jones helped--and Peter is left grasping.

The horror sucks out of Neal's face and leaves behind hurt. Peter suppresses the need to reach across his desk and place his hand...somewhere.

You have the right to remain silent.

I didn't let you down.

I know about Alex.

You took Kate.

Remain silent, please.

I welcome you into my home and you run a file on my friend!

You still don't trust me, after everything.

Copy of a copy of a copy. Peter swallows hard against the synapse of each memory that he imagines blink in and out of Neal's wounded eyes.

You're the only person in my life that I trust.

Neal's hand is shaking.

"How could you..." he struggles to say. "Why would I want anyone to -- fuck. Christ. You never said anything. You didn't even ask..." Betrayal weighs down Neal's words. The hurt ripples to anger and hardens his face. His eyes shutter closed and his mouth sets into a thin line. The chair behind him teeters as he pushes to his feet. Peter stands as quickly and counters Neal at the door. Neal pins him with one long, challenging look. Peter falters back in surrender. As Neal sidles by him, his head bowed, Peter first notices the tinge of color in his cheeks.

He watches Neal yank his coat from the back of his chair and stalk through t he double glass doors.

After thirty minutes, Peter attempts a call. It goes directly to voicemail.

__

 

The first week, Peter offers a string of apologies, slips between them one line explanations.

I was only trying to help.

They should pay for what they did to you.

I thought...I thought that you would want this.

Neal continues to refuse his calls except to provide his insight, give an opinion, satisfy his obligation as Peter's CI. He chuckles a cruel -- really? -- each time Peter invites him to lunch or dinner with Elizabeth and a home-cooked meal.

The second week, Peter agrees fine, fine, fine. You're fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine. He tires of walking on eggshells. He sends Jones to pick up Neal from June's in the morning and Diana drives him back in the afternoon. Their phone calls are hasty. Their words curt. In the office, they speak without looking at e ach other. At everyone and everywhere else, Neal flashes his trademark grin.

The third week, June leaves him a message. Neal is having nightmares. Peter listens to it twice, then deletes the voicemail.

__

 

The blind spot: miss it and with a hasty swerve you crash.

__

A month passes. Another mission gone awry and, once again, Neal is looking down the barrel of a cocked gun.

In the surveillance van, Peter hears: "Do it."

Peter bangs his head against a shelf as he shoots to his feet. A shot rings out. Jesus. Peter flings his headset off, elbows Jones in his rush and throws a sorry over his shoulder as they charge out of the van.

"Neal!"

Neal is aiming the gun in their suspect's face, his arm unsteady. The agents freeze. A hush falls in the dilapidated loft. Peter's heart rattles in his ears.

"Don't do it," Peter manages, training his own gun on Neal. He coun ts one...two...three...begs time to stop, rewind.

Please, Neal. Please please please. His one mantra since Neal first came to him that night. That wretched, fucked up night.

"I wanna see him dance," Neal whispers, a tear sliding against the delicate curve of bone, down the sharp hollow that's become more prominent over the weeks.

"Look at me," Peter commands. "Look at me, Neal."

Peter repeats it, over and over, in a relentlessly firm tone. He keeps counting: eighteen...nineteen... twenty...

"Come on, son."

Neal turns his head with immense effort. His eyes are wild. His breathing raspy and haggard. His face is drawn from much, much too much pain. Peter feels a catch in the back of his throat and his chest constricts. If only. A hundred times, if only.

Peter lowers his gun first. After a moment, Neal follows. The agents come alive; Jones cuffs their suspect and rattles off his rights. Diana raises her handcuffs and looks at Peter questioningly. Peter shakes his head; she nods and follows Jones out.

Peter waits until the room is clear.

Neal's hands are in his pockets, his back to Peter.

Peter steps carefully. Starts by touching at the edges only. He pulls gently, then insistently when Neal resists, a half-hearted attempt. Neal folds against him, his head falling on Peter's shoulder. Peter's arms come up behind Neal's back, anchoring him.


	6. Travel

The next day, Hughes orders Neal on suspension with no end date. He is not unkind. Peter is tight-lipped when Hughes questions him, but Hughes has lived a long life. He’s survived several wars, battled in one and has seen his share of broken people in his work, his life, in family, friends and his own children. Hughes won’t send Neal back to prison, but he orders Peter to find a way. Find a way.

__

 

Neal refuses Peter’s offer to bring him back to Brooklyn. At the door, Peter finds himself having a wordless conversation with his feet, raining upon them a conflicting mess of frustration, anger, helplessness…guilt, and he itches to kick out. His mind is grappling with alternatives and harnessing another unspoken expletive when an exaggerated sigh catches his attention. Neal is sitting at the table, the chair across from him slanted toward Peter in invitation. Peter's eyes fall on the silver knight, a shade darker under the dim light and its shadow stretched and looming behind it. Peter’s shit at chess, but okay; this, he can do. 

 

It’s been twenty minutes and Neal is still staking out the board for his next move. Peter glances at his watch. Elizabeth expects him home in an hour, but she’ll understand if he doesn’t leave until after Neal is asleep. He reaches into his pocket for his phone. Neal advances a pawn.

Check.

Neal stands and stretches. When Neal smiles, slight but genuine, it is Peter’s cue to shrug into his coat and follow him to the door. They each bid the other good night. As Peter readies for the stairs, he stops at the tentative hand on his elbow. 

Neal’s eyes, soft and unreadable. Quietly, he says, “Thank you.”

__

 

Peter adapts his schedule to serve his lunch hours so that at promptly 1 PM every day, he is at June’s doo r. Minutes later, he is on the couch with Neal, channel surfing, mindlessly rifling through whatever lay open on the coffee table or both. Sometimes, Neal grouses at him and shuts the television off or smacks Peter’s hands and tells him to mind his business. Each time, Neal glares at his deviled ham sandwich. 

Some days, he finds Neal busy at his canvas, engaged with a shade of blue. During a series of days, he watches Neal manipulate aluminum foil into a miniature replica of The Awakening. It is startlingly accurate and the protruding left hand, its base buried in the makeshift ground Neal created from sand, stirs in Peter both yearning and earnest resolve. A sprinkling of sand dusts Neal's chin. Peter wonders, not for the first time, at the unspoken, the rarely expressed but through his creations – this. This nebulous life Neal houses and has carefully constru cted around it his meticulous façade of confidence, illusion and shimmering brilliance. And Peter can’t help but to fashion promises in his head: a vow to shelter; a vow to keep; a vow to continue.

There are days when Neal rambles and Peter welcomes the foray into a lively retelling of history, or an enthralling adaptation of otherwise dry encyclopedic facts. Sometimes, they spend the hour walking in the park or the range of Neal’s neighborhood. Once in awhile, Mozzie joins them and they bicker; Neal smiles a lot and laughs every so often. These are the easy days.

There are days when Neal startles and his breathing quickens. Peter practices the questions that take him to where Neal has gone and grounds Neal with a hand on a place where he knows it’s safe to touch. He trains his voice to deliver in soothing tones and talks about the sun, the chessboard, the standing mirror by Neal’s bed, names the things that remind Neal of where he i s. They count together until Neal’s breathing evens.

There are days when all they do is sit on the patio and watch the clouds shift, and Neal says nothing; his silence is simple and Peter chews on his sandwich without comment. Sometimes, Neal’s silence is defensive and ornery; he barks at Peter or sullenly withdraws. Peter barks back or stares at his fingernails, and they sit at opposing ends in the room as if each is on his own island. But the next day, Peter returns, even if Neal’s silence stretches that day or the day after. Peter keeps returning and he learns to navigate the silence.

__

 

A day comes when Peter arrives with a briefcase of files. Not long after, Neal returns to the office, if only for several hours. And then it’s only two days a week, and, then, only at his desk. Peter assigns him the most cryptic, challenging clues and case benders. Once, Neal joins them in the surveillance van.

__

 

One evening and several glasses of wine later for Neal, beers for Peter, Neal’s amiable chatter slips to thoughtful contemplation. There are candles on the dining table, the coffee table, the shelves, on other ledges and surfaces and several by the sink. They temper corners and edges, and bathe the room and Neal's face in soft and delicate.

He is not looking at Peter when he says, “I tried to fight them off.”

Peter puts down his beer and waits until Neal meets his eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

Neal turns away, but not before Peter catches his eyes bright and…complex. He forces a laugh. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything to ‘make it happen to me,’” he emphasizes with air quotes. “I didn’t deserve it. I’m the—” he breaks off and rolls his eyes “—the victim. I know the drill.”

Peter waits until Neal’s diatribe folds into the silence, when he knows he has permission again to speak.

"It’s not your fault,” Peter repeats, and lades it with all the conviction his hushed affirmation can hold.

Neal regards Peter for a moment, then reverts back to his earlier chatter.

Peter doesn’t say it again that night and says it again sparingly in the days that come, so that each time they have an impact. Each time, if not immediately, a lost piece of Neal resurfaces. The shadows on his face gradually recede and his cocky swagger becomes less and less an imitation of himself until one day Peter spies the original article. 

They are shuffling out of the thrift store where Neal met June. The new store clerk is pretty with cascading dark hair; Neal slides the piece of paper with her phone number into his suit pocket and flashes Peter a wry grin. Peter shakes his head and let’s Neal saunter a few paces ahead, then he catches up and they walk, shoulder to shoulder, the rest of the way home.


End file.
